The number of recent immigrants to Israel who are unemployed has declined significantly and compares favorably with the national unemployment rate, according to Yair Tsaban, Israel’s minister of absorption.
Addressing a special Cabinet session last week devoted entirely to issues regarding aliyah, Tsaban reported that employment among recent immigrants declined in 1995 to 6.5 percent. The figure was 33 percent in 1992.
The current national unemployment rate is 6.9 percent, Tsaban said.
But the minister pointed out that the full potential of the immigrants is not being utilized, because many of them are still not employed in the professions for which they had trained.
Tsaban also identified two serious problems still confronting the immigrants, most of whom are from the former Soviet Union.
Although 70 percent of all new immigrant families have purchased their own homes, three are still more than 40,000 families who cannot afford to do so, Tsaban said.
These families are in desperate need of government-subsidized, low-rent housing, he said, adding that the problem is particularly acute for 12,000 elderly olim couples.
Tsaban called upon the government to quickly build low-rent apartments to rectify the situation.
The second problem is the negative stereotypes that Israelis associate with immigrants from the former Soviet Union, he said.
Some Israelis associate those immigrants with prostitution, drunkenness and crime, he said.
Last week’s Cabinet session also was the scene of a stormy exchange between Tsaban and Uri Gordon, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Department of Immigration.
Tsaban criticized the Jewish Agency for reneging on its commitments to co- sponsor several absorption programs, including the establishment of an artists absorption center and the running of the immigrants student Authority. Similar accusations were also made by Deputy Education Minister Micha Goldman.
But Gordon, describing Tsaban’s claims as “scandalous,” said that despite the agency’s financial difficulties, there will be no cuts in its immigration or Jewish education budgets.
Gordon blamed the agency’s financial difficulties on the decline in funds transferred to Israel by Diaspora campaigns.
Gordon added that the agency and the government are now examining the possibilities for increased cooperation, a process that will result in a new order of priorities for the agency.
In April, the Jewish Agency, confronted with a $30 million budget deficit, announced across-the board budget cuts.
During its recent assembly in Jerusalem, the agency approved a budget of $519 million for 1995. The agency also called upon Diaspora Jewish federations to upgrade their annual donations to Israel.
Also last week, the Central Bureau of Statistics announced that since January of this year, 34,500 new immigrants arrived in Israel.
The represented a 2 percent increase over last year’s similar period, according to the bureau.
Of this year’s new immigrants, 29,800 came from the former Soviet Union, 1,600 from Europe, 550 from Asia, 850 from African countries and 1,700 from the United States and countries in the Pacific.
Tsaban told the Cabinet that Israel can expect an annual flow of 50,000 to 60,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union during the next few years, provided that no dramatic changes takes place there.
Tsaban said a record number of Israelis have been returning to the country. In 1990, only 5,000 Israelis returned to live in the Jewish state. The number have risen to 14,000 annually during the past two years.
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